"Main deck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... close action; and the fire continued, without intermission, till half past one in the morning, when the Spaniard struck. It proved to be La Sabina Spanish frigate of forty guns; twenty-eight of them, on the main deck, being eighteen pounders; with two hundred and eighty-six men, commanded by Captain Don Jacobo Stuart. The captured ship lost it's mizen mast during the action; and the main and fore masts were so damaged, that they both gave way on the very first attempt to carry a press of sail. In this ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... one of these hand-operated doors started two men on the main deck to close it. They worked four hours before they had carried out his order. If all the doors on the ship had worked as badly as this one, what would have ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... the Ocean's cabins were on the main deck, and also on the raised half-deck at the stern, near the wheel, the binnacle and the officers' corned-beef tubs, swinging in their frames. From this upper deck two flights of steps led down to the main deck below. At the ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... main deck he edged his way along between the narrow passageway and the washroom to a secluded spot astern. He liked this place because it was so lonesome and unfrequented and because he could hear the whir and splash of the great propellers directly beneath him as each big roller lifted the ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... soared again, sure and buoyant; the mate dragged his arm free from Dan's hold and turned to swear; on the main deck the horse-laugh of Bill answered the singer. The Dago heard nothing. Bending forward over the rail, he stretched both arms forth, and in a voice that none recognized, broken and passionate, he took up the song. It was but ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... smokestack down on the main deck, one of our party, who loved not the sea for its own sake, but endured it as a passageway to the sight of the Grand Fleet, had found warmth, if not comfort. Not for him that invitation to come below given by the chief engineer, who rose out of a round hole with a pleasant "How d'y' do!" air to ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... and the Favorite, 220 feet length, 2,168 tons, 8 casemate-guns, are building in England on the same plan. The Solferino and Magenta, (French,) built of wood, and a little longer than the Royal Oak, (see Class III.,) are iron-clad all round up to the main deck, and have two 13-gun casemates ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... occurred within? Did Benson believe me already gone, and was he emerging because of that belief, or had he and his forces been vanquished? The suspense was more wearing than that which I had endured while waiting for dissolution. Presently the main deck came into view, and then the conning-tower opened behind me, and I turned to look into the anxious face of Bradley. An expression of relief ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... prisoners, some sick and without the least assistance from physician, drug, or medicine, and fed on two-thirds allowance of salt provisions, and crowded promiscuously together without regard, to color, person or office, in the small room of a ship's between decks, allowed to walk the main deck only between sunrise and sunset. Only two at a time allowed to come on deck to do what nature requires, and sometimes denied even that, and use tubs and buckets between decks, to the great offence of every delicate, cleanly person, and prejudice of all our healths. Lord Howe ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... The main deck and forecastle of the vessel presented a similar picture of mingled unquietness and repose. Many of the seamen might be seen seated on the gun-carriages, with their cheeks pressing the rude metal that served them for a pillow. Others ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... went back to the main deck and wandered aft, where he stood a long time looking over the stern, interested in watching the receding water. It was dark by this time, the wind had increased and had blown the fog to landward, and the ocean had changed to a deep blue, the blue of the sky at night; ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... place at table and take a revolving chair at the nine o'clock breakfast, one o'clock dinner, and six o'clock tea which sustained the second saloon. Daily, ascending the companion ladder to the main deck aft she gradually faded from cognisance forward. There they lay back in their long chairs and sipped their long drinks, and with neutral eyes and lips they let the ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... cabins on the main deck, this was lit by scuttles in the ship's side, and right aft, big armoured doors opened on to the stern walk. It lacked conspicuously the adornments usually associated with the Captain's apartment. Bare corticene covered ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... they had finished I turned and held Jeremy's hand in mine for an instant, then followed the new-comer to the ladder and out of the hold; the two men coming after us, and resolving themselves above into a guard. As we traversed the main deck we came upon Diccon, busy with two or three others about the ports. He saw me, and, dropping the bar that he held, started forward, to be plucked back by an angry arm. The men who guarded me pushed in between us, and there was no word spoken by either. I walked ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... the boys, critical as was the moment, could hardly restrain their admiration at the fine appearance she presented. Her distended gas-bag shone in the sunlight like silk and her cabin woodwork sparkled where brass handholds and plates were attached to it, like the main deck of ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... been made of the stern sheets by screening them off from the main deck with an awning, and from out of this a lady, a young widow, stepped just at this moment, followed by a young man. They had been out of sight together, innocently occupied leaning over, watching the fish darting about down in the depths of the transparent water. The moment they appeared, however, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... of the poop, Gary of the forecastle, and Yeo, as gunner, of the main deck, while Drew, as master, settled himself in the waist; and all was ready, and more than ready, before the great ship was within ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the great deck she stood on and all the little specks of life it carried. One of them, drifting nearer, took the shape of her maid, followed by luggage-laden stewards, and signing to her that it was time to go below. As they descended to the main deck, the throng swept her against Mrs. Lorin Boulger's shoulder, and she heard the ambassadress call out to some one, over the vexed sea of hats: "So sorry! I should have been delighted, but I've promised to spend Sunday with some ...
— Autres Temps... - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... worth introducing to those who are meeting him for the first time. Captain William Broome, familiarly known as Bill, or the old man, was a remarkable person. There was a strange softness in Captain Broome's tread, like that of the padded panther, as he came forward along the main deck. He appeared like a man always ready to get a death hold upon a nearby enemy, both wary and using unceasing watchfulness. This was evident in the crouching gait of his powerful figure. His arms had the loose forward swing of a gorilla's, ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... seen it, no doubt—and had got four boats overboard and filled—the sea was pretty calm—and three of 'em away and out of range of fallin' pieces if she did take a notion to let go suddenly, when the dog sprang out of the door at the top of the stairs leading down to the main deck, barkin' like mad, runnin' up to the captain, who stood just behind me, pullin' at his trousers, and runnin' back again. Then a yell came from the boat below that one of the old women was missing: it was her sister. One half-crazy man said she'd jumped ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... desirez?" asked the straw-hatted young man in an accent as Britannic as the main deck ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... hatch combing she saw, now, as a person sees in a dream, sailors rushing and struggling aft along the slanting main deck. The engines had ceased working but the dynamos were running on steam from the main boilers, and through the noises that filled the night the sewing machine sound of them threshed like a pulse. What had happened, ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... sixteen I was a sailor before the mast," he said, "the sort of sailor that King's crew out there wouldn't recognize in the same profession. I was of so little account that I've been knocked the length of the main deck at the end of the mate's fist, and left to lie bleeding in the scuppers for dead. I hadn't a thing to my name then but the clothes I wore, and I've had to go aloft in a hurricane and cling to a swinging rope with my bare toes and pull at a wet sheet until my finger-nails broke and started in their ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... carry this quality a little too far. I knew of a man once, named Billy Ewart, who prided himself greatly on the care with which he fulfilled every part of his duty, so that it was impossible for the strictest disciplinarian to find fault with him. He had charge of the main deck. One day the Admiral inspected the ship, and took occasion to praise Billy Ewart for cleaning so well the main deck and everything connected with it. "The only dirty things I see," he said, pointing to a hen-coop, "are the legs of your geese." This was, of course, a joke, but it preyed ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... Madeleine Cooney, this time reported by the United States Army mine planter, Schofield. Two days afterwards in latitude 27 deg. 52' N., longitude 84 deg. 34' W., a vessel was found in 65 fathom of water, with her anchor down, burned to her main deck and on fire aft. She was dismasted and her bowsprit had gone. Eric was sent in charge of one of the boats to run a line. The sea was comparatively smooth, so that the Miami made fast alongside her stern and put two lines of hose aboard. The cutter's heavy pumps were attached and in fifteen ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... certain other adventurers had purchased a vessel of some five hundred tons, which they proposed to convert into a pirate by cutting portholes for cannon, and running three or four carronades across her main deck. The name of this ship, be it mentioned, was the Good Samaritan, as ill-fitting a name as could be for such a craft, which, instead of being designed for the healing of wounds, was intended to inflict such devastation ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... into the wire wheel an' that bore down the stern o' the ship so the under wires touched the water. They made it spin like a buzz saw an' got their clothes all wet. The ship went faster when they worked the wheel, an' bime bye they got tired an' come out on the main deck. The water washed over it a little so they clim up the roof thet was a kin' uv a hurricane deck. It made the ship sway an' rock fearful but they hung on 'midships, an' clung t' the handle that stuck ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... cleared, and the boarders rushed below on the main deck to complete their conquest. Here the slaughter was dreadful, till the pirates called out for quarter, and the carnage ceased; all the pirates that surrendered were taken to Jamaica and tried before the Admiralty court where sixteen were condemned to die, ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... George' was a hundred-gun ship; and what we don't often see now, when I first belonged to her her guns were all brass. We had brass twenty-four-pounders on our quarter-deck, forecastle, poop, and main deck, brass thirty-twos on our middle deck, and brass forty-two-pounders on our lower deck. In the spring of '82, when we were at Plymouth (about six months before she sunk), it was considered that the brass forty-twos on the lower deck were too heavy for her, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... convenient shelters to hide their indecorous mirth. During the afternoon it may be said that Mr. Sturge's troupe had the deck aft of the forecastle to themselves. Being unacquainted with naval usage, they roamed the poop indifferently with the main deck, no man forbidding them, while Captain Crang and Mr. Wapshott slumbered below; the one of set purpose, in the hope of recapturing through the gates of horn, if not the complete data of last night's imbroglio, at least ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the rear, a marble-topped, sideboard. On the sideboard, a woman's sewing-basket. Farther forward, a doorway leading to the companion way, and past the officers' quarters to the main deck. ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... boat," yelled Dan as he followed his mate. But Mulhatton only turned back a defiant look. Together they wrenched the boat from its blocks and lowered it to Noonan, standing below on the main deck astern. Crampton, the engineer, was at the wheel, while Whitey Welch stood by the engines. As the lifeboat was straining on the top of a swell, Mulhatton attempted to leap in, but was viciously punched ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... had not bated a jot of its violence, and the ship labored so heavily that I had the utmost difficulty in getting out of the cuddy on to the poop. When I say that the decks fore and aft were streaming wet, I convey no notion of the truth: the main deck was simply afloat, and every time the ship rolled, the water on her deck rushed in a wave against the bulwarks and shot high in the air, to mingle sometimes with fresh and heavy inroads of the sea, both falling back upon the deck with the boom ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... the 25th July and arrived on the 6th day of our journey, 30th July, at Vienna, The Floss, or raft, on board of which we embarked, is about as long as the main deck of an eighty-four gun ship and about forty feet in breadth. It is constructed of strong spars lashed together. On the spars is constructed a large platform and on the platform several cabins, containing tables and chairs. Mr F——, the Poles and myself hired a cabin to ourselves. On the raft ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... were divided into thirty-seven messes, put down on the purser's book as Mess No. 1, Mess No. 2, Mess No. 3. The members of each mess clubbed their rations of provisions, and breakfasted, dined and supped together at allotted intervals between the guns on the main deck. ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... seen him swilling the decks, she had seen him dancing a jig, she had seen him going round the main deck on all fours with Dick on his back, but she had never seen him going ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... stern a heavy double canvas screen ran 'thwartships from one side of the boat to the other, shutting off a small space of deck for the use of the crew. The main deck space was allotted as follows: under the forecastle head accommodation for two officers and two petty officers, abaft of that the well space, of which I have spoken; under the library was Mr. Pulitzer's ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... a little too impersonal to suit him. They weren't for Oscar Fujisawa; he had gotten a Mars-Consolidated Police Special out of the chart-table drawer and put it on, and he was loading cartridges into a couple of spare clips. Down on the main deck, the gunner was serving out small arms, and there was an acrimonious argument because everybody wanted a chopper and there weren't enough choppers to go around. Oscar went over to the ladder head and ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... compared with the beam of 52 feet, insures great stability and the consequent comfort of the passengers. A point calling for special notice is the large number of separate compartments formed by water tight bulkheads, each extending to the main deck. The largest of these compartments is only about 60 feet long; and, supposing that from collision or some other cause, one of these was filled with water, the trim of the vessel would not be materially affected. With a view to giving still further safety in the event of collision or ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... was, How we had got no farther on our way to Lima? To which we answered, By reason of the currents. To two or three other questions, we answered satisfactorily in Spanish, and they were getting their tacks aboard in order to leave us, when Sprake and two or three more of our men appeared on the main deck. A Frenchman aboard the Brilliante, who was on the mast-head, seeing their long trowsers, called out, Par Dieu, Monsieur, ils sont Anglois, By Heaven, Sir, they are English: Upon which they immediately fired ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... minutes Trask watched and listened. The man on the forecastle head coughed gently, and then came clumping aft, dropped to the main deck with a smack of bare feet, and drew the scuttle aside, to put his ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... pitching on any vessel, but the fresh air brought new life to the wretches about me, and a species of cheerfulness was quickly manifested. Bad as the food was we ate it gladly, nor did the memory of the dead, already laid out on the main deck, long depress us. Why should we mourn for them? We scarcely knew any among them by name, and, facing the uncertainty of our own fate, each man secretly felt that these had possibly found the easier way. Our own misery was now greater than theirs. ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... conducted tied two and two to the ship. Being but a small ship, (ninety ton) we soon purchased our cargo, consisting of one hundred and seventy slaves, whom thou mayest, reader, range in thy view, as they were shackled two and two together, pent up within the narrow confines of the main deck, with the complicated distress of sickness, chains, and contempt; deprived of every fond and social tie, and, in a great measure, reduced to a state of desperation. We had not been a fortnight at sea, before the fatal consequence ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... The Malay at the wheel, after making a dive to see the time by the cabin clock through the skylight, rang a double stroke on the small bell aft. Directly forward, on the main deck, a shrill whistle arose long drawn, modulated, dying away softly. The master of the brig stepped out of the companion upon the deck of his vessel, glanced aloft at the yards laid dead square; then, from the door-step, took a long, ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... and damp. Last night we on the main deck had to sleep with ports closed, so we had to live with very little air; I do not know what the temperature was, not having a thermometer with us, as we are almost amidship and near the engine, it must ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... but in great confusion some were shot down, others took refuge in the tops; others were driven overboard and drowned, while others fought hand to hand from the main deck to the quarter deck, disputing gallantly every inch of ground. There were three Spanish gentlemen on board with their ladies, who made the most desperate resistance; they defended the companion-way, cut down several of their assailants, and fought like very devils, for they were maddened ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... curiosity which was perfectly natural in view of the fact that he had himself fought an action with her, and chased her while he was in the Angamos. He smiled as his eyes fell upon one of the beams supporting the main deck, for in it were embedded several pieces of shell which the Peruvians had not seen fit to remove; and he knew that they were the fragments of a missile, fired by his own cruiser, which had entered one of the Union's open gun-ports ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... stiffening and means for preventing penetration or abrasion by ice. Hence the frames are more closely spaced than is usual in vessels of her size, numerous web frames associated with arched supports at the main deck and adjacent to the waterline are fitted throughout her entire length, and a belt of 3-inch greenheart planking, with a steel sheathing over it at the fore part of the vessel, is further provided. Indeed, throughout the vessel, every precaution has been taken with a view to insure ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... of defiance swept the length of the Royal James as the men went to their posts. The gun decks ran along both sides of the sloop a few feet above the water line. They were like alleyways beneath the main deck, barely wide enough to admit the passage of a man or a keg of powder behind the gun-carriages. These latter were not fixed to the planking as afterward became the fashion, but ran on trucks and were kept in their places by rope ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader |
